We Declare that politicians must obey written laws as written. No “interpretation,” no ifs, ands or buts. This is the official blog of Andy Horning.

According to our Declaration of Independence, governments derive “…their just powers from the consent of the governed.” But as demonstrated in the Middle East today, all government powers, just or unjust, are by consent of the governed; and that consent can be withdrawn from even the most oppressive dictators.

So the problem with despotism is never really the despot. The problem is that for every despot there is a majority of citizens who empowered that despot. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Caligula and countless others didn’t kill hundreds of millions by themselves, you know. Do not fool yourself; people like Kim Jong Il, Charles Taylor, Hirohito, Mugabe, Quadhafi, Nebuchadnezzar II, Nero or even Vlad the Impaler are everywhere and always among us. They are nobody special by themselves.

Here in the USA, we can conveniently, painlessly choose how we are to live. Deny it or not, we have exactly what the majority of us have freely chosen. We may say we want change, but we vote for mostly elites and incumbents. We may say we don’t like the corruption and money in politics, but less than 10% of us ever vote for anything else. Many dictators of the past century, including Benito Mussolini, were elected by people just like us.

So consider what we’ve chosen. We’ve not had even a year’s peace since the War to End All Wars. The Home of The Brave has sacrificed freedom for empty promises of security. The Land of The Free has the world’s highest percentage of citizens in prison. We really do tax people out of their homes to pay for homelessness programs; and we tax, regulate and litigate away businesses to stimulate the economy. We guard borders everywhere in the world except at home. For the first time ever, we’re working longer hours, taking fewer vacations, spending less time with our kids, and living more poorly than the previous generation. The rules we must live by are unknowable and ever-changing – law has now become little more than incantations, as high priests of law in grand courts decree, apparently on whim, how things are to be.

Are you happy with this? Is this how you want to live?

Humans can learn. When we want something, we know all about our choices of color, flavor, engine size, craftsmanship, price or caliber. We spend crazy amounts of time on sports, or romance novels. I know people who can tell you the vertical jump height of their favorite basketball stars, or can detail Oprah’s diet ups and downs.

But by what I’ve personally seen in tens of thousands of average voters, We The People apparently don’t care about the injustice and madness we’ve chosen to make of our lives. We know less about those we’ve chosen to lord over us than we know about movie stars. We certainly don’t know anything about our state and federal constitutions.

Despite what we may say, our votes say that we want unaccountable people of status and money to tell us what to do. Our behavior in the voting booth is beckoning a dictator. I believe we’re going to get one soon.

May I make a request? I’d like for you to read your state and federal constitutions and see what we’ve thrown away…and could have back anytime we choose. They are still law, though we act otherwise. They would still work better than anything else ever tried, if we’d only try them.

If you’ve taken the hour or so it takes to read the federal constitution, you already know that federal government should be invisible to almost all of us almost all the time. The Indiana constitution is the contract most relevant to Hoosier life. It’s a longer read, but still not terribly long or complicated. Both comprise rules of life that are few enough to know, simple enough to understand, and important enough that everybody should obey them without exception, all the time. The free life these contracts describe is simpler, safer, and in every way better than the politicized lives we’re living now.

Please ask other people to read them too. If you know somebody who wants to read them, and has no internet access, and you’re too cheap to print them out yourself, then contact me at thefreedomfarm@gmail.com, and I’ll get you copies.

I intend to deliver the following to the Governor’s Office with a press conference at noon on July 4 on the east steps of the statehouse.

I believe this is the the most appropriate date (and a date upon which I’d staged yearly protests until 2008). I think it’s the most appropriate place to start for this Step One (a polite request to the correct officer).

I hope a good number of people, including you, can show up to join me:

Dear Governor Daniels,

We have read our state and federal constitutions. We understand their purpose and legal authority. And now we both understand, and suffer, the breadth and depth of our society’s transgressions against these fundamental laws.

These transgressions have occurred by public choice, and progressively over many generations, so we did not see the damage we were doing. But we do see that damage now.

It would be both tedious and unnecessary to detail the errors and resultant harm done, or to list our many reasons for wanting the illegality to end.

We will supply at least a partial list of serious grievances and injuries if that would help you remedy the breach of social contract that caused them. But our requested remedy is both simple and proven to work better for liberty, security, prosperity and justice than anything else yet tried in the history of human governance:

We ask only that you execute Rule of Law under existing Indiana and federal constitutions, exactly as these laws are written.

Governor Daniels, we want these laws to be enforced without exception, all the time, as soon as possible. They are few enough that everyone can know them; simple enough that everyone can understand them; and important enough that everyone, particularly agents and officers of government, should obey them all without exception, proviso or privileged classes, all of the time.

The laws leave no room for selective enforcement, or preferential treatment by corporate abstraction, class or process. All citizens are to be equal under the laws, and no person is above the laws. No legitimate political authority exists outside of that granted by the plain sense of our constitutions. All governing agencies, actions and rules that exist outside constitutional limitations are, by the clear words and purpose of the constitutions, null and void.

If any part of a constitution is so unclear as to prohibit enforcement, there is a constitutional process for clarifying it in print. But we herewith submit annotated copies of each constitution on the expectation that you will see little that is vague or open-ended in either contract. These annotated constitutions are also freely available online at:

We understand that as seriously as we have failed over the generations, it will take some time to restore legitimate authority to our civil government, and peel back the false accountabilities and destructive dependencies accumulated over generations. We propose that five years is more than sufficient to phase out all illegal political entities, processes, rules, precedents, actions and taxes; and to enact amendments and phase-out plans necessary to ensure full constitutional obedience.

Yet current budget and social conditions demand all possible speed, and history demonstrates an invariable and harsh penalty for delay. Please do immediately employ the legal and political authority that is yours, to restore what is, by law, ours.

Thank you

Here are a few specific conclusions drawn from a simple reading of the constitutions, and requiring immediate action:

Precedents, in courts or in policy, are not law; nor are “Executive Orders” law. Only the legislative branch can write laws, and then only in the domain authorized. Courts may not write laws, bureaucracies may not write laws, and executives may not write laws. Therefore, all such illegal “laws,” regulations, orders, rules and mandates are null and void. They must be declared so, and denied enforcement, as quickly as possible.

Baseless currency is illegal. Mandated, monopoly currency issued by unconstitutional transnational private banks, is illegal. Therefore, we ask for a restoration of specie payments and gold and silver-based currency as quickly as possible.

It makes no sense, nor is it constitutionally permissible, to tax private property owners for our Common Schools. We certainly don’t need taxation to facilitate the current wide and deep discrepancies between rich and poor, and it is illegal. We ask for the restoration of a constitutional Common School fund as quickly as possible.

There can be no serious doubt about what a Common School system actually is. No other education system is in the authorized domain of state or federal government. We ask for the end of any political involvement in education outside of what’s authorized as a legitimate Common School system; or at least amend the constitution to describe new limits.

The following are additional thoughts for our consideration only:

Note: In case you’re wondering why I don’t address our Governor as “The Honorable;” titles like “The Honorable” or “Esquire” are specifically unconstitutional…and for good reason.Note: some media folk (particularly the Indianapolis Star) will do their level best to cubbyhole you to something easily dismissed. Resist their attempts to brand us “Tea Party,” “anti-government,” “anti-union” or anything else in the news. Stay on subject. Do not allow them to draw you into another subject that they’ll quickly apply to all of us.Please: Anythingyou say outside of Rule of Law under existing constitutions, as written, will ruinously derail our message. DO NOT BRING UP ANYTHING ELSE. No gay marriage, war, tax…anything but ROL under existing constitutions, as written.Please: Dress nicely, and come neatly groomed. Be as pleasant and yet firm, as possible. This would not be a good time for joking around or bringing/wearing props. This is serious; we must be serious, solid citizens.DO NOT FORGET: Weare the progovernment people. We want to govern our government, restore legality to our lawmakers and justice to our judiciary. Weare the ones who are legitimate, correct, and on the legalside of the law.

PLEASE NOTE: This is more of a mea culpa than a protest. We The People have what We The People have chosen repeatedly through the past hundred years. We must admit the error of our ways, and choose better. We have no cause for anger…not yet.Extra Special Double-Note: I repeat: we have gotten into our mess because nearly everybody has chosen it, progressively, and over generations. Most people still cannot imagine what kind of trouble we’re in. If they could, they would not believe that they’re to blame. Remember, we’re not asking so much of our politicians as we are of We The People. We’re asking voters/citizens to change themselves. It is a big enough task to get people of extraordinary political understanding to join us… let us try to show patient understanding to those who still just don’t get it.PS: I wrote that last note largely to me.

Here’s the key thing:

Tell everyone you know to check out the letter to our Governor, send it to their state legislators, and ask them to add their in-person support to our little endeavor.

Over 60% of the 2011 Indiana budget is going to whatever politicians and their lobbyists call “education.” Over the past several decades, the percentage of those billions that gets to the classroom has dropped to less than 60%. Our embarrassingly high percentage of administrative buildings and personnel, and the absurd cost of sports programs that serve a tiny percentage of elite students is inexcusable as average students get fat and fall behind their overseas peers. American schooling is by far the most expensive, and among the least effective, in the world.

So it’s fine that there’s been talk of school funding, teachers’ unions, pensions, student nutrition and the taxation and spending rules that we’re told have something to do with learning. Yet amidst all the chatter over vouchers, Charter Schools, “investment in our future,” and of course, sports, I’ve so far heard nothing that is both workable, and legal.

It is suspicious that Article 8 of Indiana’s Constitution appeared on the last day of the 1851 constitutional convention without a word of debate. The person who transcribed the article (perhaps he wrote it himself?) was Robert Owen, Jr., son of the New Harmony commune’s founder, and ally of the “progressive” educator, Horace Mann. Yet commie plot or not, the Indiana Constitution’s Article 8, Section I, does now “provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.”

The constitution and historical context are unmistakable. “Common Schools” were the uniform (as in identical) system of tax-subsidized schools promoted by Mann as the “ladder of opportunity” to educate poor kids without religious influences. And Common Schools are not compulsory; parents are free to choose non tax-funded alternatives. And the phrase, “tuition shall be without charge,” has been clarified many times over the years as meaning only tuition. So legally, even poor parents must find money for books, lunch, transportation, and in fact everything but tuition. Sports were certainly not part of school. Besides, that’s what parks and public gymnasiums were for; so that even kids who weren’t in school had something to do.

Article 8, Section 2 mandates a Common School Trust Fund derived from corporate taxes and other statewide sources that forbid any local funding, like personal property tax, because we don’t need the brute force of politics to achieve inequality between rich and poor areas. In fact, Article 4, Section 22 says, “The General Assembly shall not pass local or special laws… Providing for the support of common schools, or the preservation of school funds.”

Of course Article 8 wasn’t necessary. There already was a rapidly-developing system of “Free and Fee” schools, but almost all of the tuition-free schools were run by churches. Churches had been America’s Department of Health, Education and Welfare before we gave everything unto Caesar and his non-voluntary collection plate. However, churches are, as you have no doubt heard, religious. And Article I, Section 6 of the new constitution decreed that “No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.” So yes, Indiana legally gave at least something unto Caesar.

However, both state and federal constitutions forbid politicians and bureaucrats the monopoly power over education they now exert. And though many of us are opposed to any socialized education on moral, religious and practical grounds, Indiana’s original socialists came up with a far more reasonable scheme than what we’ve devolved to now.

Maybe online education from India and China could break our governments’ unconstitutional, monopolistic stranglehold, and drop the now crazy costs. I hope so. It would be the best thing to happen to Hoosier kids in decades. I wish I could be the one to sell it.

I have never believed in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or that creepy Tooth Fairy thing.

But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t nurtured other baseless, nutty beliefs until some painful paroxysm jolted me awake.

Many years ago, under horrible personal circumstances, I endured the same spiritual upheaval you’re feeling right now. Just as with you, my religion turned out to be a big lie. My false god turned against me, just as it’s turning against you now. So like you, I can no longer believe in the charity, peace and love of …politicians.

While initially painful, there is relief in this truth that sets you free.

But there’s another problem. Nobody alive remembers how liberty works. We cannot imagine how schools, roads jobs, healthcare, or food ever existed without a political genesis, subsequent bailouts, lawsuits and bipartisan bickering. Only if you’re over 100 years old did you even exist when there was such a thing as a free market; with all the innovation, competition and rapid advancement that entails.

So as we endure the agony of Change that’s not working, we must thoughtfully prepare a better way forward. I suggest we first retrieve what we’ve lost from the past.

All federal authority is still clearly written into the Constitution for the United States of America (Article I, Section 8; Article II, Sections 2-4; Article III), which you could read in just a few minutes. All other powers are still very clearly denied by one short sentence (Amendment 10). Similarly, all Indiana government powers are spelled out in the Indiana Constitution, while every other conceivable power is still denied by a single sentence (Article I, Section 25).

No state or federal constitution was ever amended, altered or suspended to authorize most of what governments now do to citizens. Nullification of anything unconstitutional is already law at every level of government in the republic. So we have the right, the power, and the duty, to tell politicians to back off; all the way back to the constitutions.

Here’s a summary of what that means:

Citizens can do whatever they want to as long as they don’t harm anybody else, or take what’s not theirs.

We’d have no more government than necessary to maintain #1

We invite others around the world to emulate our success, but otherwise leave them the heck alone.

Your major civic duty is to disobey, invalidate and otherwise eliminate all unconstitutional taxes, mandates, organizations and agents. Yes, civil disobedience is a duty.

So caveat emptor would replace the FDA, FTC, FDIC, FCC and a zillion other F’agencies. Common sense, family ties, competition, voluntary associations, charity and free market options galore would replace union/corporate monstrosities, Medicare, Social Security, lobbyists, regulations, litigation and price controls. And because of the preceding, you get to keep what you earn, buy what you like (smoke it if you’re fool enough – and as long as you don’t blow it in my face), and live however and with whomever you want…as long as you leave others, and their stuff, alone.

No federal tooth fairies, no President coming down the chimney with presents, no more bogus political promises; just a reality proven to work better than anything else ever tried.

That may not be a Square Deal or a New Deal. But it’s a fair deal, which makes it the best deal in all of human history.

The Indy Star made some seemingly minor edits to my gubernatorial candidate submission, but I thought I’d better post the original here just in case you wanted to see what I’d actually sent them (or in case you don’t get the Star):

Nobody wants to shortchange kids.So it’s natural and common to deny the extent and nature of the problems with our schools.But our schools are literally a criminal shame.

I don’t have space to detail the problems with unconstitutional regulations and bureaucracies that sap teachers’ authority and initiative.I wish I could shed light on corruption like the Tremco/AEPA/Wilson Education Center no-bid jobs; or discuss the injustice of low teacher pay against six-figure salaries for school administrators, sports coaches and of course union officials.You can see the problems if you dare to look.What’s important is that we can fix the problems if only we’ll change the way we think, and vote, about schools.

A good start would be to examine what was originally designed, acknowledge what devolved, and then plan a fix.

Article 8 of the Indiana Constitution is the law respecting our tax-supported education system.The key words are “…and provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.”

When our constitution was written, “Common School” meant the uniform and simple system of primary (not secondary) education promoted by Horace Mann as the “ladder of opportunity.”As opposed to the free church-run schools of the day, Common Schools were intended to give poor children a non-Christian education.They were to be state-funded with no disparity between rich and poor regions.And these uniform schools were meant to be rigidly focused on scholastic achievement, so that a Common School graduate would be ready to work in the real world with useful skills in mathematics, science, communication and technology.Colleges and universities were only for those who needed specialized, advanced training for academia, medicine or engineering.After all, real life (and drop-outs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Thomas Edison…) won’t wait through two decades in a classroom.

Article 8, Sections 2 through 7 lay out specific funding by an “inviolate” and “perpetual” Common School trust fund.Of course that fund was violated and is now gone.But the fund is still law, to be maintained through many specified sources including “taxes on the property of corporations.”What is excluded, and therefore not authorized, is personal property tax.So legally, half of your property tax bill is unconstitutional.

This is the law.If we don’t like it, then let’s talk about how we’d amend it.

But I believe the law is vastly better than what we’ve fallen into with our political chicanery.So here’s what I propose we do:

We’d de-consolidate toward a greater number of smaller schools where buses become obsolete in all but rural areas, so that parents and teachers can more easily collaborate; and kids would no longer be such tiny fish in such large oceans.Teachers would have authority to teach, to expect a high standard of performance, and to expel.No more “dumbing-down” or lowering standards to fit a curve.Teachers would be rewarded for performance, not just for paying union dues. We would spin off sporting facilities into community centers and gyms so that kids don’t have to be genetically gifted to play.

…We all know kids who need more opportunities to exercise.

And while there is no excuse for compromising necessities like music and art instruction, microscopes, and a clean, healthy environment; homeschool successes have demonstrated that education doesn’t have to be vast and expensive.And it wouldn’t be, if school money went solely to teachers, smaller-scale buildings, and education supplies.

John McCain says the media isn’t giving him a fair shake.He has no idea what it’s like to run as a Libertarian. But he also has no idea what it’s like to apply for a real job with a real interview.

What sort of press does any candidate (even Obama) get these days?When will we hear answers to the most basic, important questions that should be asked of every politician:

Are there any laws that politicians must obey without exceptions?Are there any rights that cannot be violated?Is there any property that cannot be seized?How much taxation is enough?What is the value of a human life, and who decides?What is the valid role of government?What is none of politicians’ business?And are your answers in writing somewhere?

How about we just stop that silly “two party system” fiction and start asking these critical questions?You know we need to.

Right now.

In the 2008 gubernatorial race, there is only one candidate even running for the constitutionaloffice of Indiana Governor.This man has already proposed overhauling state government.He has already proposed standing up to D.C. to demand federalism.Of course he’s proposed eliminating personal property tax.He has also already proposed eliminating CPS/DCS, phasing out public schools in favor of Common Schools (as is constitutionally required), stopping I-69, and in general, restoring what works and rejecting what’s failing in Indiana.And he also did this when he ran for Governor in 2000.

He was right on the facts and issues then, and he’s right on the facts and issues now.

Voters have heard none of this from their eyes and ears in the democratic process, the media.Voters rely on the media’s imprimatur of legitimacy, and yet all they hear about is Mitch Daniels’ money and incumbency, Jill Long Thompson’s “Green Jobs,” and that nebulous charge of “negative campaigning” that marks every race.

If you’re not a Christian, turn back now. This blog isn’t for you. The following is for my brothers and sisters in Christ:

I do not pretend to be a good Christian. I try, and I fail badly, frequently. If you expect a Christian to be free of doubts or missteps, then I don’t qualify.

Even so, I’d love to speak to church groups all over the state because I’ve got more than just a nit to pick with my Christian family.

I believe that my “govern government” message is, essentially, to give back to God what is God’s. American churches have given waaaay too much to Caesar.

There was a time in this state and nation when moral instruction, health, education and welfare were the domain of the church and/or other local voluntary associations. Politicians had nothing to do with these critical social functions, and Americans were the better for it.

If your barn burnt down, the congregation would build it back up. If you needed healthcare, chances are you’d get it in a church-run hospital. Churches founded colleges, ran local schools, built parks, doled out charity (to those that actually needed it!), and cared for the elderly and alone.

And, critically, the church was a powerful social regulator in that their physical, social relevance also meant that excommunication was a big deal; not just a meaningless dismissal.

Well, we’ve delegated all this to Caesar, his bread and circuses, and his corruptions. See the results around you? Not so pretty.

I’m just about done with many Christians’ politician-friendly “interpretation” of the tribute penny story found in three books of the New Testament: “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” (Luke 20: 26)

Some Christians think this means that the money isn’t all that important, or that, as in Luke 18:25, you’re much better off without it anyway. It’s true that you can’t serve two masters.

But Christ himself pointed us in an entirely different direction through Matthew 17:24-27. The key phrases are, ““Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him,” and “…so that we may not offend them…give it to them for my tax and yours.”

Why do I think that’s the key?

Because, first of all, Christ Himself says that the children of God are exempt from Caesar’s tax. Second, because they’re paying taxes in this case just for appearances sake.
And,according to just about everywhere in the Bible, human Kings represent our turn from god and toward human idols (see I Samuel: 8, Acts 12: 21-23), and everything and everyone, belongs to God!

And with all the talk of money, we mustn’t forget what’s more important:

“You are not your own. You were bought at a price” – 1 Cor. 6:19-20 NIV.

And did we Christians somehow miss that the early Christians were killed in droves and in horrible ways for defying Caesar and spreading the Word of God?

I don’t believe Christians are called to be garnishes on Caesar’s dinner plate. We are to be beacons to God’s Covenant and Kingdom. We’re supposed to exemplify and point to the truth, not act like doormats.
Yes, some might say, but what about Romans 13?
Yes; about that.
I think we’ve been badly misinterpreting that one too.
The rest of Romans is obviously written to Jews living in Rome who (apparently) needed reminders about Temple discipline (remember, not only was the Word sharper than a two-edged sword, but there was also Temple Tax and punishment like lashings, stonings and such). Jews had a theocratic government, and Paul was exhorting them to remember that.
I understand people think that Paul suddenly interrupts the chapter to discuss civil government when the rest was about church/Temple/faith.
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers… ”
Is that just Nero, really?

The Roman ruler who burned Christians in his garden like tiki torches and killed all but one of the Apostles (who died opposing Caesar, remember) was not who who Paul referred to as “…the minister of God to thee for good!”
To read that any other way seems like a really odd interruption and jarring sidebar to what is otherwise a very cohesive argument.

Anyway, today, this is the sovereign state of Indiana (Article 4, Section 16 of the Indiana Constitution), a member state of the United States of America, where we have the authority to choose our leaders, and by extension, our way of life. Christians have, like the ever-stiff-necked ancient Israelites, rejected God’s Word, His laws, His example and His Blessings. Do I need to remind you how nations are judged for such things?

There is a corollary to “In God We Trust.” It’s “In Politicians We Do NOT Trust.”

If I get my way, churches will stop fussing over their precious tax status, and start doing here in the USA what they know they must do in missions abroad: Spread the Good News, while rolling up shirt sleeves and serving their fellow sinners in ways that matter in every day life.

One way or another, by wise pre-planning, or by grim necessity with our economy collapsing around us, you’d better get ready…

That tax-funded schools are supposed to be identical/equal all across the state?

That it’s illegal to take personal property tax for schools?

That justice is supposed to be tax-paid without any additional purchase?

That constitutional rights cannot be regulated?

That all Indiana politicians swear oaths to both Indiana and USA constitutions?

That politicians have only the powers specifically written into constitutions?

That only citizens can interpret constitutions, and only jurors can interpret laws?

That politicians must obey constitutions…as written?

Well, politicians certainly don’t want you to know these facts, but they’re all clearly written into the laws that protect you from politicians – the state and federal constitutions.

Why belabor the minor nuisances of corporate/political corruption, entrenched political powers, wild spending, shortsighted tax policy or even the “wasted vote” deceit that you’ll no doubt hear over and over again in this campaign?These are all symptoms; not the disease itself.

The disease is ungoverned government.It’s the only anarchy that has ever existed – power without restraint.And the solution is simple.You must govern your government.

Fortunately, that’s simple.You can simply vote for those who swear to honor their oaths of office “to support the Constitution of this State, and of the United States.”

Unfortunately, all your neighbors don’t know what you now know, and it costs money to get their attention.Even more unfortunately, the enemies of the simple, uniform justice written into our laws pay lots of money to get special deals.They pay even more to deceive us.Too few are willing to pay for a Fair Deal.